The cooling system of an electric power plant installed on the coast (such as a thermal power station) is generally supplied with water from the sea. Drum screens may be used to filter the seawater supplied to the cooling system pumps.
However, floating layers of organisms (a cluster of jellyfish for example) or of pollution (typically an oil slick or a layer of debris) can form on the sea surface. The presence of such floating layers can congest the filtering drum screens. Beyond a certain amount of congestion, the clogging of the drums prevents the pumps from functioning normally, which can result in the loss of the heat sink for the plant.
It is generally necessary to shut down the cooling system in order to clear the drum screens, which means a simultaneous shutdown of electric power production by the plant.
In order to prevent drum screen clogging and to avoid the resulting shutdown of power production, there is a need to anticipate the possibility of drum screen clogging, in particular by detecting the presence of floating layers near the plant.
Currently, aerial surveillance flyovers are sometimes established in order to monitor the sea surfaces around a plant and to detect the possible presence of any floating layers.
However, this aerial surveillance is limited both temporally and spatially, and must be carried out during the day. As a result, this monitoring technique is exclusively used for the management of already reported crisis situations.
There is therefore a need for a technique enabling preventive detection of floating layers which are a potential threat to a site of interest such as a thermal power station.
Furthermore, the behavior of floating layers on the water surface varies with their composition. For example, a layer of obstructing organisms (such as jellyfish or algae) does not behave in the same manner as an oil slick, and these do not present the same risk of clogging the drum screens of the plant.
There is therefore also a need to characterize the composition of floating layers detected near the plant, in order to better anticipate the potential for clogging.
The invention improves the situation in this regard.